The Torn Petal
by Ryuko-chan
Summary: Saionji goes insane in the Kendo room.. early, and not too good.


The Torn Petal  
  
Bamboo practice swords rained onto the floor from their racks. Saionji Kyoichi stood before the haphazard mess of jumbled shinai, panting. He crouched, face in hands. He might have cried, but there was almost no feeling left in him. Nothing but pain, nothing but frustration and insanity. There was almost no man inside him, just a whirling torrent of mad emotions. He was being reduced to nothing but feeling, he could tell. He knew it was happening to him. He panted, eyes wild and angry.  
  
"Nothing left.." he said to himself, "Nothing left to go on."  
  
Touga Kiryuu mused in his room. He was a man of noble stature, broad shouldered and handsome. He was adored by all, probably because he was student council president, he was adored by the girls for another reason. That was not what he was dwelling on at the moment. Now he was meditating on his friend, or rather, former friend Saionji.  
  
"Poor Saionji. he started to lose himself on the way, didn't he? And now we all must pay the price. One duelist gone, or rather, less gone than just not here.." Touga smiled, he enjoyed his poetic notions, "Things would be so much easier if he just learned to let it go. but no. He actually loved her, he actually, actually did." He said. And he thought they were meant to be together. Of course, the revolution has more to care about than one torn petal.  
  
"Bye Utena!" Wakaba shouted, smiling, though inside she was in pain. Such was the fate of the Black Rose duelist, at least her fate. She ran home, not bothering to smile anymore.  
  
"And so I dance with you in my dreams." she thought, "How childish!" She curled into a ball in one corner of her room, behind the bunk. She would have cried, but she knew she lacked the emotion. She and he, it was a silly notion. The student council vice-president and a know-nothing onion princess with romantic notions about everything. And yet, she wished it was so. She had seen him around school lately. A dark cloud seemed to follow him everywhere.  
  
"Why won't you smile?" she asked out loud, eyes closed, picturing his face. He never seemed to. But at least he knew what he felt. As Wakaba clearly knew, smiles could shadow pain, or pain could shadow smiles. At least Saionji didn't have to deal with either of those problems.  
  
Music rang through the room, as it always did when Miki was there. The Sunlit garden played, its notes almost tangibly beautiful. If you really thought, you could see that garden, branches overhanging, time whiling away. But then, something always broke his concentration. This time it was an errant thought. This time it was important. The thought was,  
  
"Poor Saionji.." Miki jolted. He looked down, closing the cover of the piano.  
  
"Poor Saionji? What reason do I have to pity him?" Miki said to himself, though he knew full well why, and though he didn't like Saionji, he found himself darkened by the thought of his world. All that suffering, all that pain. Somehow, Miki knew, that even if the rest lived to see the revolution, Saionji wouldn't, unless, of course, he got some help. Miki doubted privately that even that would save him from the torturous world he had created for himself. The saddest part was that they might have been able to prevent this, had any of them cared. Miki frowned. It seemed as if this problem would either consume itself, or resolve itself, soon, but he seriously doubted the latter.  
  
Hands clasped the locket around Juri's neck. Then she let go. Her mind dragged away from painful thoughts to anything else. And, like most others that night, snapped to Saionji. He had been acting strange lately. Not as if he had never acted strange before. But this time it seemed he was frayed to the point of breaking, and there was nothing they could do.  
  
"Poor Kyoichi. There aren't any miracles for you either." She whispered. Because he was weak. That was the only explanation. Of course, there was an element of weakness in all of them. There was a weakness in each and every one of the duelists. Saionji's was covered in blood. The blood of old wounds. The blood of duels, long forgotten by the rest, but, Juri knew, played over and over in the mind of Kyoichi. The blood of love lost, that pain, that blood was all too familiar to Juri. But she could take it. And that was why she had no pity for Saionji. He was weak.  
  
Even Utena was thinking about Saionji tonight. She had seen him, at school, briefly. She turned to Anthy.  
  
"Was Saionji the first to be engaged to you?" She asked. Anthy looked up, startled, then she smiled.  
  
"No, Utena-sama." She said.  
  
"Oh." Utena said, thinking. She turned back to Anthy, who was playing with ChuChu.  
  
"Has he always been this way?" she asked. Anthy nodded, solemnly, "There was something wrong, it seemed, today. But, then, with him, isn't there always?" Anthy smiled.  
  
"He has been our martyr." She said cryptically. Utena looked at her, a little shocked. But then, she decided to think of other things than a man, locked in his own world of hate, really a boy, no more a man than a monster, tamed inside his world, pacing the floor, looking through his bars, and screaming.  
  
The blonde, bright hair tossed as she laughed. Her dull, flickering eyes betrayed the falsity of her laughter. But what was Nanami laughing at? No more than her own fantasy. Just the ravings of a twisted young woman. Yet, she, she was also thinking of Saionji.  
  
"That Kyoichi!" she said to herself, "That guy has some problems." She, herself, had known him for a long time, and as Wakaba had thought, really never seen him smile. Her brother had been friends with him, when they were both children. He was a dark child, she remembered. So very like himself now. Saionji was in the kendo room, as always. He seemed to spend so much time in there, doing what? Nothing but entertaining his own fantasy, much like she was now. Something had cracked inside him, her brother told her, when he first lost the bride, that Himemiya. Foolish boy, foolish, foolish. Thinking her mild obedience love. His own, would never attempt to make up, for he was a pitcher with a cracked spout. Whatever he tried to give out, came out unpredictably, and spilled. Leaving his feelings to dry up on the floor. And when he ran out of good feelings, the sour, bad, temptingly evil, stayed stagnant in there, cracking him even more. Until, they spilled out, and until finally, everything spilled out, leaving him nothing, a shell, an empty pitcher with no form. Leaving him, period. And nothing to protect him. If he didn't smash himself first.  
  
Unknowingly, these six revolutionists, gravitated towards the Kendo room tonight, where that mad pitcher was indeed overflowing. His spillage manifested as scattered swords, ruined walls. The kendo room, which had been Saionji's safe haven for who knows how many quivering, sleepless nights, was being destroyed by his hand. His hands were cut and bleeding from holding the wrong end of the sword.  
  
"Isn't that how it always is?" He asked himself, "Poor Kyoichi, always at the wrong end of the sword?" The room was decked out in red and black, every wall smeared with innocent blood, the blood of the torn petal himself. He picked up an old and well-used sword from the ground, it seemed the oldest in the room. He ran his ragged and painful hand over the blade, noting the fact that it didn't cut into his skin, with some difficulty, after all, the numerous cuts made it hard to tell. Steps ran down the street.  
  
"Good," he said darkly, "this pain is no worse than that I live with every day! I shall ever be at the wrong end of the sword!" he shouted, raising the dull blade to the ceiling. He turned the tip to himself. Raising his eyes to the sky, Saionji cried. He raised the reversed blade in his arms, and made for the final thrust.  
  
"NO!" what seemed like a thousand voices called out to Kyoichi. He stopped, dropping the bloodstained sword in surprise. The revolutionists looked surprised at themselves. They couldn't pretend to actually care for Saionji, all except Wakaba. She ran to him, holding his hands in hers. He was too weak to push her away. Juri glanced around the room, bloodstained and trashed.  
  
"Someone is going to be suspended from school. Again." She said under her breath. Miki looked in innocent shock at the scene of carnage before him. Nanami smirked. Touga walked slowly forward to his fallen friend.  
  
"Saionji." he said. Wakaba looked up at him, tears in her big brown eyes.  
  
"How could you do this to him?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Touga looked down, the pain and anguish of his forgotten childhood friend obviously more a source of sadness than he let show. The only one who didn't step inside the forbidding carnage-wrought kendo room was Utena. She hung back in the doorway and looked around.  
  
"It's my fault," she thought, "It's really all my fault." She thought to herself. Then, darkened by the scene before her, she turned to leave. Saionji looked up, alerted by her scuffling sound. He stood up as well as his loss of blood would let him. Wakaba hung on to him, trying to get him to get down, stay down, anything to make him stop this madness. He stood, wobbling slightly. He pointed one accusing finger at Utena.  
  
"You," he said, his voice filled with hatred, "You are the source of all my problems." He finished, stumbling against Wakaba. Touga leaned forward to catch him. Nanami glared angrily at that.  
  
"This will just tear him from me!" She thought, outraged. Miki and Juri stared in silence at the scene unfolding. Saionji collapsed to the ground, arms supporting his torso, still staring accusingly at Utena. Suddenly, her guilt-ridden face changed. It changed to one of pure confidence. As if her voice was another's, she spoke,  
  
"We of the revolution may pay no mind to you if we please, Kyoichi. Men like you have no place in the new order." She turned and walked away, leaving Saionji, staring after her. His eyes were filled with the cold emptiness of a man who knew he no longer mattered. Then they sharpened with resolve.  
  
"I always knew that." He said, "And I don't want to have to make my own place anymore." He said, voice measured and soft. He glanced toward the dull old sword again, reaching with bloodstained hands toward it. Lightning flashed outside. Wakaba held Saionji, Touga supported him, Saionji reached for the sword. The scene seemed frozen in time, flashlit by the errant lightning. Touga leaned down and carried the old sword to the rack. Saionji dropped to the ground, no longer able to support his own weight. Wakaba leaned on his back, sobbing.  
  
"Don't die, no, no, you can't die. If no one else needs you, know that I do!" she shouted amid her tears. Touga, Nanami, Juri, and Miki gazed mildly on. Miki leant down, picking up a handful of bamboo shinai. He set the vaguely red practice swords on the rack. Juri picked up a bloodstained sword, wiping it on the torn curtains, and setting it lovingly on the rack. Touga wiped his hands, now stained with Saionji's blood. He looked down at Saionji, who was just barely clinging to consciousness.  
  
"Saionji," he said, noting a vague upward turn of his deep purple eyes, "We will not pretend to know how you feel, we won't even pretend we need you. However, know, that someone needs you. The revolution will go on without Saionji Kyoichi, but this young woman won't." Nanami stared at him, jaw fallen. He had the audacity to say that the revolution wasn't enough? Not enough to die for? Juri nodded and stepped up.  
  
"You will have to decide. Which is more important, being needed or being wanted." Juri finished, standing imperiously above Saionji. Miki looked at Saionji, eyes intense.  
  
"The revolution will endure without you. So, be as the child. Care not about the big picture. Remember, someone needs you, even if you yourself don't." He said, making a finalizing gesture with his hand. Saionji coughed.  
  
"I am no longer the cogs of a machine, I am an excess. I deserve my fate." He wheezed. Wakaba smiled, wiping away the blood from his face.  
  
"You will just have to learn, Kyoichi." She said. Saionji looked up at her. He looked at the love in her eyes. And he smiled, ever so slightly. Then his eyes, so long deprived of anything happy, rolled up into his head, and he fell, unconscious. Wakaba clutched his prone body to her, weeping. Touga turned, the rest of the council following suit. He put his hand on Nanami's shoulder.  
  
"Come, little sister. We need to get some help for Saionji." He said. She frowned, confused, but followed.  
  
A few weeks later, the student council got fully together for the first time in months. Saionji sat in a corner, as he always did.  
  
"Saionji," Touga said. Saionji looked up, eyes dark, but otherwise not different, "How are you?" Saionji sneered, like his old self. Too much like his old self.  
  
"Sick of false pity." He said. Touga turned to the duel. It was Wakaba.  
  
"She is doing well." He stated simply. Saionji turned to look. He noticed there was grace to her movements, he noticed a spryness he had never seen before in her. He had never seen her duel before. And slowly, ever so slowly, a smile spread across his face. Perhaps there was room for a torn petal in the revolution, maybe the pitcher could still be used. 


End file.
